To will another future into being

“This is the dilemma faced by any large organization or cause: how to keep its people moving, if not in lock step, then at least generally in the same direction. Strategy promises a blueprint for doing this, but in the end it is more an art than a science, an all-too-human process of guessing what might work. It can be undertaken with great deliberation, in regularly scheduled planning meetings and off-site conferences. Or it can be seized upon in moments of crisis and uncertainty, as a hedge against despair — an act of faith that it may yet be possible to will another future into being.”

Strategy May Be More Useful to Pawns Than to Kings, by Beverly Gage, New York Times, 3 September 2018. Gage is Director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy at Yale University.

“A hedge against despair” lingers in the mind.